Tuesday, 16 December 2014

Stop Humouring the Humourless

I’ve often wondered the purpose of laughter. In upper primates, it has been around for roughly six million years as a mechanism to show affection and playfulness, rather than aggression and threat and yes, gorillas actually laugh when relaxed and not being eaten by Ebola ridden Africans. We possess a genome dedicated to humour, hard-wired into our social psyche – a defence mechanism to protect us from horror and false and very real threats.

We entertain ourselves in what little free time we now possess with humour and comedy. We sit transfixed as comedians parody and lampoon the great and the good and rightly reward and honour those who expose their hypocrisy and duplicity. Whether Spitting Image, Private Eye, Viz Comic or Harry Enfield and Ting Tong, we delight as the pompous and humourless are held to account by the public. Those who would rather we didn’t are naturally furious but understand thankfully that in a free society, dissent takes many forms and laughter is one of the more harmless ones.

Our newspapers and online media are full of the most brutal political cartoons, designed specifically to offend the sensibilities of those who would rather we didn’t and simply accept their version of the planet, without question or due process of thought. I can’t think of a decent cartoonist who doesn’t receive death threats for having the audacity to point out hypocrisy. Our social and printed media is flooded with witty and satirical comments poking fun and questioning the messages our “betters” delight in broadcasting to us at every opportunity.

Compare and contrast if you will, against authoritarian societies where to even snigger at political criticism can and certainly will bring you anything from arrest to death. Regimes so insecure in their self appointed right to rule that to even entertain the thought of doubt out loud will have you branded a subversive, a seditionary, an enemy of the State or the collective to be denounced and destroyed.

Britain has a rich and illustrious history of satire. In 1695, the Government threw out the Press licensing act of 1692 designed to “prevent the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Bookes“ and the effect was startling. Publications could finally print critique of the ruling elite without fear of death, the public could, instead of rioting and killing in their frustration, simply laugh at the whole, ridiculous pantomime of it all. Others were not so lucky – the dictators of Europe were able to rise to unquestionable power simply because any mechanism using mass media to stop them was throttled – see the East German book of licensed jokes or Stalin’s Socialist Compendium of Satire to see where an ill timed chuckle could lead you. Unluckily for the subjects of such regimes, they failed to realise that to laugh publicly is to hold megalomaniacs to account. They were silenced by ruthless cowards who cannot accept rightful criticism in lieu of brutal oppression

Well, we’re all comedians now. We can tweet, write our own jokes, mock, jeer, lambaste and humiliate whomsoever we see fit – from the comfort of our own homes and with a few clicks of a mischievous mouse. We can expose hypocrisy, corruption, abuse of power and point the spotlight at the idiots who still feel they have the God given right to speak on our behalf. There are still those who will threaten to burn down our businesses or our houses because we may utter something they disagree with online or post a cartoon in a newspaper mocking their religion. There are still those in more brutal regimes who will shoot schoolchildren in the head for daring to have an alternative opinion than one written thousands of years ago, but we realise that they are quite, quite mad and very, very dangerous.

So go ahead and issue your fatwas, demand we be silenced, shriek and shriek until you are blue in the face that “you can’t say that, it’s offensive” because actually, yes, we can and yes, we will and your ilk have been proven to be the most dangerous people on the planet – those who cannot laugh, despite being genetically programmed by nature to do just that. To laugh is human – to crush free speech and humour is the work of inhuman monsters with no free will to ignore, or even better, counter argue or debate to defend your ridiculous position. We who can laugh will be watching you – you’ve already killed hundreds of millions in the name of an obedient, compliant, authoritarian silence that suited only you and now we will hold you to account, and ironically, this time we aren’t joking. From Pakistan to Anfield (yes, you’re reading this, aren’t you), from Syria to Martin Brunt, you will not silence us because we know how to have the one thing we were put on this planet to do – have fun.

Here’s to the funny ones and sod the offended, no one is forcing you to listen to the beautiful sound of liberty, freedom and free speech; if you don’t like it or can’t face it or are too scared of the consequences to entertain it, don’t read it – that way lies the Gulag, Comrade.

Sure, but what's the point of doing it here when the comments section of this blog gets totally overrun by pointless queeirdos who are probably tasked to do so by GCHQ, as described by the Snowden revelations.Even your chum Paul/Guido has restricted his comments section now. You, OH could take his place with a proper site specifically for that purpose, instead of getting sidetracked into the twattish ego-narcistic shite that is twitter. People of stature don't use twitter. It is almost entirely populated by wankers of little importance.So, OH, how about organising a proper site to take over where Greedo took the wrong turn? You could finance it with advertising.(I don't really care enough any more, I've emigrated)

On TV tonight is Michael fessbender playing Bobby sands in 'Hunger' apparently the producer wanted Mr Creosote from month Pythins meaning of life to play Sands, but couldn't get him as their first choice

Dyengi, what is happening with the Rouble? Not that I have any free cash to visit or buy foreign currency. Will the fall in it's value precipitate Volya into rash action? Is Putin queer? I think he is. Remember Maggie Thatcher? Wonderful woman who fucked Arthur Scargill and the idle miners. Took back the Falklands, nothing like a colonial war to take minds to get support back at home. Slava Bogu!Must away as I have to visit the food bank.

Nobody has the right to shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre. Likewise mocking dead kids is held to be de trop. You must be quite retarded not to have taken this on. No wonder you are popular with plod and the far right.

Might I just say that since being banned from Twitter for being an thick troll it has given me more time to concentrate on being a neo nazi racist piece of shit and full time Cont page 6. Fuck Tibet, Leonard Poulter is as guilty as sin.

Why does nobody take me seriously when I claim to be a freelance investigative journalist concentrating on olive corruption? Is it coz I have a long history of mental illness and am pro rape and pro Paedophiles like dear friends Neil Redrup and Neil Watkins?

He is my better which I have to accept, it such a shame he is not a rampant Cottager like me. I am so unlucky in love first Rod Liddle spurned by gay love, then Jody McIntyre .......Oooh matron what's a girl to do to get laid?

Hartlepool FC say we don't want Ched 2up Evans the convicted rapist playing for them. The manager Ronnie Moore said...."If he gets on the park he would go a long way to getting us out of trouble and be good news for the local Premier Inn. My only worry is that he lacks ball control and cock control come to that".

I hear the Garda Siochana are due to pay you a visit very soon. Still you will not have to worry about finding shitty accommodation for much longer. I guess you will make some of your wing very happy sweet cheeks🙀

2012 was fun but 2015 is going to be the mother of all years for you moron. The tabloids will really fuck you. Ian P thinks you are a Cnut and JR and the Vs think you are a total liability and bad news.You have truly descended to the lower levels of the shit stream.

I disagree where I squat in O'Connell Street Dublin it is impossible to find social housing or a poper job if I really wanted one due to East European immigrants and darkies. So I am forced into being an age sex worker.

'I was on aid 1989 FA Cup Final between Liverpool and Everton at the old Wembley Stadium. This was a bare four or five weeks after Hillsborough. Grief-whoring, ticketless and pissed Scouse shit were climbing up the sides of the Stadium to get in and being helped by their mates already inside. Pardon me for being unfashionable, but don't ever tell me that fans did not bear responsibility for some of what happened at Hillsborough.' http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/threads/grieving-a-national-sport.223917/page-7

Yes immigrating is very popular with Brits who cannot stand being surrounded by foreigners?!!!

My nephew who pretends to be an 'Anti Corruption Mave' but is bent as a horseshoe, blames East European immigrants because at 54 years of age he has no job, no money and no future other than gaol. How queer is that?

Oooh I feel such a cnut as I prepare for amother imaginary journey to the UK from my shithole in Ireland. I know that if I really ventured there I would get lifted at the airport and ghosted around the UK and possibly tortured so New Years Eve willnas usual be spent at the hostel with other retards. I hope next year eill be better than the last 54, but I know in my bones it will be even worse!

Convicted Welsh rapist Ched 'Sticky Seconds' Evans reputedly has been offered a contract to play football. Maltese team Hibernians FC. Mr Furrigia the club manager said, "We are top team in Malta with a maximum ground compacity of nearly 3000, it will be a fitting end to the young Cock Slingers career in professional football.Ched Evans long suffering squeeze Natasha said, "where the fuck is Malta, is it in Yorkshire?"

With crap Hartlepool United being scared off will Ched Evans ever return to top flight football? And by that I do not mean Maltese Hibernian F.C! The justified rape claim of his sweet young victim Miss X(who changed her sunrname to Yvonne Howarth and fled to Camden in London) has caused many repercussions - there is now an indication that anonymity will be returned for rape trial defendants like Ronald McDonald - by mid 2115. Poor Natasha how could the filthy Ched pervert go two's up behind her back and lubricated by McDonalds cream? Ooh matron!

I enjoyed your little essay about laughter, OH. It strongly reminded me of the speech by Blessed Giorgi in The Name of the Rose (book by Umberto Eco). His position was diametrically opposed to yours, saying that mirth was the invention of the Devil. Up to that point, I didn't know that the Ayatollah Khomeini lived in Medieval Europe.

Personally, anyone with a good sense of irony knows that God loves a good joke. A little while ago, I was lurking on Archbishop Cranmer's blog (pardon the smell of incense). He would agree with you.

To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is it's justice; that is its morality.